Keen To Be Green

So I'm going to take ten minutes out from my busy studying schedule (so far today I have moved notes 5 times, fixed an unbroken microwave, eaten some anchovies, talked to my Mum on the phone for half an hour, talked to Krissa's parents for fifteen minutes, doodled incessantly) to tell you about the exam I'm taking tomorrow.

It's the LEED Accredited Professional exam, where LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and it's the scheme used to rate green buildings in the US, or it has been for the last seven years or so.
When you hear of new flagship skyscrapers going up in New York being toted as "LEED Gold" or, in the case of No. 7 World Trade, "LEED Platinum", this is the scheme used. It's all about designing the buildings to be as environmentally friendly as possible, use as few resources as possible and have as small a ecological footprint as possible.

"Buildings buildings buildings!" I hear you cry. "What of car pollution and smokestacks and jet engines and oil for breakfast? Hmm? You and your buildings, what can they do?"

Well, I say to you, opinionated and somewhat odd reader, that the time for me to wheel out the statistics is now at hand.
This is all out of the exceptionally helpful United States Green Building Council (USGBC) Colorado chapter study guide for LEED:

Commercial, institutional and residential buildings account for approximately:

-40% of global consumption of raw materials*
-37% of U.S. primary energy consumption
-68% of U.S. electricity consumption
-12% of U.S. potable water consumption, including 5 billion gallons a day for flushing toilets (I've noticed that the standard flush over here is HUGE in comparison to the UK one)
-136 million tons of construction and demolition debris annually - approximately 40% of all solid waste in America
-35% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions

(* I find this one kind of hard to swallow, but I suppose buildings are sort of big in comparison to other things)

So as you can see, there's a metric f**kload of room for improvement and making a difference there.

So that's partly why I'm taking the exam - to get involved in the sorts of design decisionmaking that can make a difference to these numbers, one project at a time.

Rumour has it that the exam used to be a lot easier than it is now. To begin with they were trying to popularise LEED, to spread the word and get as many people involved as possible. There are tales of a 90% pass rate.
Now after what seems to have been a bit of a backlash against a too-easy qualification, the building accreditation scheme hasn't changed that much, but the exam has. A lot.
The sorts of questions we're talking about are like this:

For this question's answer, pick the three most useful options according to the examiner's opinion:
A) Obviously Wrong Thing
B) Correct Thing
C) Could be Correct Thing
D) Could be Correct Thing
E) Correct Thing
F) Could be Correct Thing

And if you don't get the precise three they want, you get NIL POINTS.
And the shade of distinction between the could-be-correct and correct answers is so tiny that it is the twinkle in the eye of a bacteria. And if you think bacteria don't have eyes then that's because YOU HAVEN'T LOOKED CLOSE ENOUGH TO SEE THE TINY TINY TINY EYES.

I've been doing practice exams and I'm getting a bit better at spotting the tricks and pitfalls, but because they're there at all, the impression the exam gives is very childish. Ahah, I think, there's another trick.
But I'm annoyed because I don't know what a pass grade is. There are 80 questions.

Here is an excerpt from the LEED exam FAQ:

Q: How is the LEED Professional Accreditation exam scored?
A: A scaled scoring process is used to score each exam. Scores can range from 125 to 200, but candidates must achieve at least a 170 to pass the exam. Note that the scaled score is neither the number of items correct nor percentage correct. USGBC reports scaled scores so that candidates know that a passing score of 170 is required to pass on each test. In this way, confusion about what is required to become a LEED Accredited Professional is avoided.

I think confusion has not been avoided.
I think confusion has been encouraged.
I think confusion has been invited around for a cup of tea and a chat.

Anyway.
Back to the books.
Wish me luck. I'll know if I've passed or not straight afterwards, so I'll let you know how I get on.